


Touch the Sky

by Lif61 (UltimateFandomTrash)



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Dragons, Eret's into Gobber, Flying, Gen, POV Eret (How to Train Your Dragon), Post-How to Train Your Dragon 2, Skullcrusher - Freeform, it's implied in this, stormfly - Freeform, the Thorstons are crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:08:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24543625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UltimateFandomTrash/pseuds/Lif61
Summary: Astrid begins teaching Eret how to ride Skullcrusher.
Relationships: Eret & Astrid Hofferson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: The Gen Sub Hub





	Touch the Sky

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever (and possibly only) _How to Train Your Dragon_ fic! I just love Eret. And I've been reading _Throne of Glass_ , and all the wyvern riding made me want to write a dragon riding scene.

Large, slitted green eyes stared at Eret, and he stared right back, breathless. The massive, green-scaled dragon with hints of red — particularly on his horn — huffed out a breath, and then made a grunting noise.

Astrid was putting a saddle on him.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Eret asked. Maybe he wouldn’t ask such a thing around Valka, or Gobber, but his first meeting with Astrid had been odd enough to warrant him being vulnerable around her. He didn’t want to admit that he was afraid. Hel, he’d been trapping dragons for years. He knew what they were like — or so he’d thought. Being carried by Astrid’s Deadly Nadder, Stormfly, had shown him that there was so much he still had to learn. Riding a dragon was much different than trapping one. But the beasts couldn’t possibly hurt him. Not with all his training. Could they?

The Rumblehorn heaved in a breath as Astrid started to tighten the saddle. She elbowed the dragon in the stomach. It wasn’t enough to hurt, but enough to get him to release the breath of air. The great brute was trying to make it so the saddle would be loose. Eret wanted to roll his eyes at the ridiculousness of it, but Thor almighty, that was a big dragon. And he was going to be _on it_.

“Skullcrusher won’t hurt you,” Astrid told him. “He’s been ridden before. Besides” — she grabbed a fish from the pack over her shoulder and tossed it to Skullcrusher — “with food in him, he’s pretty docile.”

Eret slowly approached, Skullcrusher lowing happily about his food, and, as instructed earlier, Eret placed his hand against the dragon’s snout. He huffed out a breath of air through his nostrils, maybe leaned in a bit, but otherwise ignored him.

Astrid stood back to observe her handiwork, making sure all the straps and buckles were tight enough.

“Don’t worry. He’ll like you. It just takes time. And he’s grieving too, which is why this flight is so important for him.”

Eret’s chest ached at the reminder that Berk’s former chief was dead. Eret blamed himself. Scratching at his brand, he tried to tell himself it wasn’t his fault. Drago had owned him.

Getting on Skullcrusher was difficult despite Eret’s tall and powerful male body, and he fell the first time. Astrid just held her stomach, threw her head back and laughed.

“Don’t tell Hiccup… or—or Gobber.”

“Can I tell Ruffnut?”

Eret made a disgusted noise. Ack, that girl.

“Tell her whatever you want. I just want her to leave me alone. Does she know we’re doing this?”

“No,” Astrid responded. “I told Tuffnut she touched his mace, so now they’re trying to kill each other. Figured they’d be at it for awhile.”

“His… mace?”

“He’s very protective of it.”

Eret just raised his eyebrows, and quickly decided he’d stay _far_ away from Tuffnut’s mace. In fact, he just wanted to stay away from the Thorston twins.

“Quit procrastinating. Try again.”

“Odin’s balls,” Eret cursed, trying again to get on Skullcrusher.

The dragon shook his body, not out of annoyance, or trying to get Eret off. It just seemed like one of his regular behaviors. Eret was holding onto the saddle now, one foot having come lose from its place on the dragon’s leathery, scaled hide. But he regained his footing, and shoved himself up. He followed Astrid’s instructions about how to sit in the saddle, strapping himself in, and he watched as she then mounted Stormfly.

“We’re gonna go easy at first,” she said.

Eret didn’t bother giving her a nod, was instead going over in his head what she’d told him earlier about properly flying Skullcrusher. She’d also told him that since Skullcrusher was his own being, sometimes he wouldn’t listen. There was a benefit to that. Skullcrusher had intelligence and instincts that Eret lacked, so he knew that sometimes it’d be in his best interest to listen to his dragon.

“Ready?”

“I was born ready,” Eret bragged, even though he was trying to stop his knees from shaking.

They took off, Skullcrusher dropping over the cliff, head tilted down. Eret screamed, but the wind tore his voice away. His stomach shot up into his throat, and he wanted to close his eyes. Oh Thor, he was falling. He was falling. This was it. He was going to die.

Skullcrusher spread out his wings, straightening out of his decline, and Eret grunted at the shift of weight beneath him. Skullcrusher, while massive, flew smoothly.

The wind tore at Eret’s hair, even with it pulled back, and his eyes watered. The cold threatened to have goosebumps rising on his skin, but he’d been colder. This was nothing.

Skullcrusher let out a pleased roar, flapping his strong wings, ascending up into the clouds. Eret was wet from the water in them, droplets shining in his hair. Soon, the dragon was speeding up before he could get him under control. Stormfly squawked somewhere behind him, Astrid cheering. How in Odin’s beard was she able to cheer like that? Eret was desperately clenching the saddle with his legs, feeling the straps pull tightly at him, and his hands ached from how tightly he gripped the horn. Control. He had to get control. He realized he’d forgotten everything Astrid had said.

“Slow him down!” Astrid cried.

Eret, heart thumping erratically, loosened the hold his legs had, and pulled back on the handles of the saddle, which in turn made the leather strap tug at Skullcrusher commandingly. The dragon slowed, and Astrid took her place by his side. She ran him through the instructions again.

Eret was too annoyed by the way his eyes were watering to realize how beautiful this was. These vikings were crazy. This was terrifying and uncomfortable. And his hair would be left in horrible knots.

But, he ran through what she told him to do, and after an hour, he wasn’t thinking about his movements, or what he did. He just felt the beast beneath him, and his warmth, the fire living in him, and he felt alive. The air was freedom, and up above, ground and ocean racing beneath him, no one could touch him. He wouldn’t be anyone’s slave, and he wouldn’t hurt dragons again. This was where he belonged. On the back of Skullcrusher. Even as his heart soared, Eret’s chest ached from knowing it’d taken him so long to get here in his life. He’d wasted years and years following others, being forced into violence. If he had only known…

Skullcrusher was incredible. Eret leaned over and pat the Rumblehorn.

“You’re amazing,” he told him.

His dragon rumbled with joy.


End file.
